A Year in Their Courts
by Animus Wyrmis
Summary: ...Is better than a thousand spent at home. How much of who we are is tied to memory, and what happens when we start to forget? Hermione Granger stumbles through a wardrobe, into Susan's bed, and finally into Peter's arms. A Narnia/HP crossover.
1. I Autumn

A/N: This is a Harry Potter/Narnia crossover originally written for (and posted at) the crossover(underscore)hp fest this year on livejournal, for the prompt "Hermione stumbles across a strange wardrobe in the Room of Requirement, and somehow ends up in Narnia. There, she meets a young king who makes her want to forget about her friends and old world, but is too noble to let her. Peter/Hermione." It's canon-compliant through the epilogue in _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows _and through all seven Narnia books; time-wise, it takes place a few years before the events of _The Horse and His Boy _for the Narnian characters and a few months after Voldemort's final defeat in _Deathly Hallows. _This is the first part of five (or really, four and a short epilogue).

I own neither series; JKR came up with Hogwarts, Hermione, and everything related; Narnia and the Narnians (with a few exceptions) are Lewis's. I'm just playing in their sandboxes. The title is inspired by a line from the hymn "How Lovely is Thy Dwelling-Place"—_ One day within thy courts excels a thousand spent away_; I think the line originally comes from Psalm 84.

This was beta'd by T. Mad Hatter and Ill Ame, who are both fantastic.

OOOOOOOO

**A Year in Their Courts**

_Autumn_

She returned to Hogwarts as an eighth year, turned down Professor McGonagall's offer of Head Girl, and determined to start that year like all the rest: fresh parchment and new quills, and Crookshanks making himself a nest in her textbooks: _Standard Book of Spells, Advanced Reading; Charms for Post-NEWTs; What to Do Now You've Killed an Evil Maniac and Saved the World _(that last one, she was almost sure, was a joke from Harry and Ron. There was no other explanation for chapters like "Take up Badminton" and "Learn Calligraphy"). All Hermione wanted to do, that year, was return to her lessons and essays and learning, and forget all about horcruxes and Hallows and Death Eaters. And though she knew things had changed—_she _had changed—she still expected to sink seamlessly back into her books as she always had, and she expected, somehow, that she would find the same camaraderie she had always known. It wasn't that she thought Hogwarts would be the same, of course, but she hadn't thought it would be so different, either.

She had assumed she'd share a room with Lavender and Parvati, until she realized they hadn't returned and the first years had taken over their old room; then she thought she'd be in with Ginny and her year, but there were only five beds. She finally found herself, that first night, in a small room at the very top of the staircase, with an oak desk and only one bed. There was an old, handsome wardrobe in one corner, and the bookshelves were enchanted to expand every time she ran out of space. Hermione unpacked, relishing in having her own room for the first time in Merlin knew when. It wasn't until she was finally finished that she looked around and realized how _quiet _everything was. "Never mind," she told herself, and Crookshanks looked up from his seat on her bed and purred. "There will be people when classes start tomorrow."

But her classes turned out to be mostly one-on-one, with the off lesson here and there with the seventh years—and without Ron and Harry, she was lonely. Hermione had never realized, or never cared, that without Ron and Harry by her side, she tended to stand alone. And so few of her classmates had returned to repeat their seventh year that she knew very few people. There was Ginny, of course, and Luna—but Ginny and Harry were Working Things Out, and Luna was Luna. Harry and Ron came down as often as their training would let them, for long walks by the lake and dinner at the Three Broomsticks or (sometimes) in the Great Hall; but their visits were few and far between, and they seemed to spend much of that time fending off first- and second-years who wanted autographs.

No one ever wanted Hermione's autograph, and she was beginning to find that there was a gulf—an odd, unexpected gulf—between her friends who were working, or near to it, and herself. She wasn't sure, in the end, if it was the distance or that she was still a schoolgirl or something else entirely, but she stuck more firmly to her lessons and textbooks, and studied by herself in her single room at the top of the tower—Charms and Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts, history and politics and social theories, and even human Transfiguration.

McGonagall was headmistress, but the new Transfiguration professor wasn't an Animagus (or at least not a registered one; Hermione had met enough illegal Animagi not to trust the registry), so she had agreed to tutor Hermione in the evenings, which she did with more zeal than she had ever taught Hermione in OWL- or even NEWT-levels. Hermione was hoping for a cat, in the end, or maybe something that flew. All the books said you could never be sure—and even Professor McGonagall had confided that she hadn't known what she was going to be before her first transformation—but Hermione dared to think she knew herself better than most, and sometimes she woke at night from dreams of padding noiselessly through the halls on velvet paws, eyes shining in the dark and ears pricked to any sound.

She spent more time restlessly roaming the corridors at night that year than ever before; she missed Harry's invisibility cloak (and being squashed beneath it with two boys just as exhilarated with rule-breaking and excitement and danger as she was), but she didn't need it. It seemed none of the prefects dared to take points from war heroine Hermione Granger, and the professors seemed to understand (what, Hermione was never sure—she barely understood it herself. There was no adventure this year, no crazed Dark wizard to defeat, no worrying that Harry or Ron or both of them could get _killed_, rushing about like fools—and wasn't that what she had wanted? Why, then, this restlessness?). Only the new Divination professor seemed to regard her strangely, in a way that made Hermione feel vaguely uncomfortable, when they met at night. It was odd enough that Hermione had taken to avoiding her in the corridors, if she could; and that was why, when she saw the dark-haired woman turn down the corridor, Hermione stopped in her tracks and ducked into the first door she saw, to hide. She was on her way to the library to tutor a second-year in Charms, but the girl could wait.

The room she had chosen was one she had ever seen before (though at Hogwarts, that was not particularly surprising)—dark and dusty, with old furniture stacked in corners, chairs piled on top of tables and tottering bookshelves looming over her. In one corner was an old wardrobe, which had probably been stately and handsome at one point but was now covered in a thick layer of dust. The door was half open, and on the floor of the wardrobe was a book, lying open in the dust. Hermione tutted and immediately went to investigate: the title was in Latin and the text in Greek, and the only word Hermione could read was the author's name on the cover—Plato.

"Hm," she said, and moved farther into the wardrobe, toward a dusty box which she _hoped _didn't contain more Plato. People should be more careful, honestly—philosophy was important, and books were sacred, and Merlin knew Hogwarts had its share of mice. She patted the cover of the book absently, in case it had recently been nibbled on.

The box, she realized with a sudden start, _did _contain more Plato—it looked like an entire collection of books had been boxed in an old wardrobe and _forgotten_! Hermione resolved to check through the rest of the wardrobe, in case there were other books that had been forgotten and left to rot. She poked her head deeper into the wardrobe but couldn't see to the back. "Lumos," she muttered, and then she climbed inside and started exploring.

After several minutes, Hermione realized with a start that there didn't seem to _be _an end to the wardrobe! Every second she expected the dim glow from her wand to illuminate the far wall—but it never seemed to happen, and after a moment she realized her wand was illuminating something brown and covered in _bark_. She stood stock-still and examined the tree trunk from all angles before deciding that perhaps this was some sort of Vanishing Cabinet, and the best thing to do would be to get out at once, the way she came.

Therein lay the problem, though: Hermione had gotten so turned around she seemed to be in the middle of a _wood_, not a wardrobe—and she couldn't tell which way was out. Nor, she realized after several frantic moments, could she Apparate anywhere. Hermione squared her shoulders. Well, then, there was but one thing to do: keep her wand ready and continue on.

In a moment she came to a clearing, and in it was what looked like a lamp-post, stuck into the ground as if it had grown there. The lamp gave off a warm glow and cast a pool of light around the clearing floor, which was covered in red and brown leaves. The only other light came from Hermione's wand and the stars up above, for the night was cloudless. "_Nox_," she whispered, stepping away from the post to look at the sky more clearly—she couldn't see any other lights, and the moon had not yet risen; seven full years of studying the heavens had taught Hermione to take full advantage of clear nights like these. And that was when Hermione received her first real shock of the evening.

She had never seen these particular stars before in her life. Hermione was fully confident in her ability to recognize Earth's stars wherever she was on the globe—they were, after all, more or less the same stars, whether you were in Australia or Great Britain. But these—these were _nothing _like Earth stars. She could not spot the Dog Star, or the North Star, or Mars; she couldn't find _any _of the normal constellations, or even anything that looked like them. And these stars were terribly large—much larger than Earth stars. In short, Hermione was no longer in her own world.

For a long time, Hermione stood where she was, looking up at the sky in shock. She had traveled through time before, and space; but she had never encountered magic powerful enough to send her what must be _galaxies _away, to a place where people planted lamp-posts in the middle of a wood, to light the way for people who tumbled out through wardrobes looking for stray volumes of Plato.

Hermione, finally, stepped to one side of the clearing and managed to transfigure a spare bit of parchment into an eiderdown quilt and snuggled down underneath it with the book she could not read, thanking Merlin that her magic still worked and resolving to explore the wood once it was light. She debated for a moment whether or not to set wards up around her makeshift camp, but decided finally that it wasn't worth the risk; she wanted anyone coming from Hogwarts to find her, and she didn't know if there were wizards here capable of tracing her spells.

OOOOOOO

When she woke, there was a large black bird standing over her. "Hullo," it said.

Hermione scrambled to sit up and looked at the bird. "Hello," she replied evenly, gripping her wand more firmly under the quilt.

"Have a fight with your folks, did you?" asked the bird, tilting its head to one side. "Nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be ashamed of."

Hermione, who hadn't spoken to her parents face-to-face since the day she'd restored their memories, blinked. "I haven't had a fight with anyone," she said guardedly. "Why would you think that?"

"Oh, that's what always happens when young girls sleep in Lantern Waste," the bird said with authority. "Always trouble with the boys, it is. Not meaning to cause offense, you know, but you humans would be better off if you did as us birds do, and fled the nest as soon as you were ready to eat on your own. Nothing to be ashamed of," he—for its voice was decidedly male—repeated. "Sometimes these things happen. Why don't you run along home, and tell your mam and da you're old enough to choose your own mate?"

Hermione drew the quilt about her shoulders. "I haven't been fighting with anyone," she said again, "and anyway, I _can't _just run along home; I don't know how I got here." She thought for a moment, and then—because any talking bird _had _to be magical—added, "Do you know anyone who would be able to help me get home? I was just there, and then I walked through a wardrobe and found myself here."

The bird's eyes grew large. "Ooh," he said, and then—"best to ask at Cair Paravel then, yes, that's best. Their Majesties will know what to do, you can count on that. Or if they don't, they'll know who to ask, sure enough."

"How to I get there?" Hermione asked.

"Just go east, of course," said the bird, ruffling up his feathers. "East as the birds fly—you'll know you're there when you smell the salt breeze."

Hermione nodded and stood up, folding the quilt. "Thank you," she said.

"Of course, of course, glad to be of service," said the bird. "You just tell the birds you meet that—" and then he stopped. Hermione's wand had slid from her fingers and fallen to the ground. "What's that?"

"What's what?" Hermione asked, realizing too late that he knew exactly what the wand was. She bent to pick it up, but the bird was too quick for her; in a moment, he had grabbed it with his beak and flown to the top of a tree. "Come on," she said, "give it back!"

He took the wand out of his beak with one claw and shook his head. His beady black eyes were trained on her. "That's a wand, that is," he said. "We won't be having any more witches in these parts, no we won't. No more hundred-year winters and no more beasts turning into stone!"

Hermione's mouth dropped open. "I've never turned anyone to stone!" she said. "And—what do you mean, you won't have any _more _witches?"

But the bird had stopped listening to her. "Witch!" he was yelling. "Witch! Witch!" In a moment, the clearing was filled with beasts and birds of all sorts—and even a few creatures that were neither. Hermione saw several beautiful women, strangely tall and leaf-like for humans, and several creatures that looked like fauns. Hermione backed up and folded her arms, trying to look both imposing and unthreatening at the same time. Without her wand she felt vulnerable and too open to attack, and the crowd all around her was rapidly turning into a mob. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach as she remembered stories of witches being yanked into town centers and burned—without her wand, Hermione would be unable to cast a Freezing Charm, and she would die.

"Kill it!" several voices yelled at once. "Kill the witch!"

"Her wand!" yelled other voices. "Break the wand!"

"Quiet!" yelled another voice, finally—a raven, Hermione realized after a moment spent craning her head. "The witch must be taken to Cair Paravel, and her wand with her; the High King must decide the matter," it said. Then, to Hermione: "I am Swallowpad, and I serve Their Majesties. If you come peaceably, you shall not be harmed."

Hermione nodded stiffly. "Very well," she said, seeing no way out of the mess she was in. "I won't struggle. You have my word."

"Very well," said Swallowpad, and raised his voice: "Will someone bring a horse, that we can take her more quickly?"

Several minutes passed, and then a—was that a _dwarf_?—appeared leading a plodding pony on a lead. Hermione allowed herself to be placed on the horse by a giant (he looked no more intelligent than most, but rather kinder), and the party set off. There were all manner of animals on four legs, who argued as they went; and in front, leading the party, was Swallowpad the raven. He was a most chivalrous companion, Hermione had to admit: he circled back every so often to reassure her that no harm would come to her without just cause; that the High King would be fair, should she choose to snap her wand and live a redeemed life. Hermione tried to smile, but there was nothing reassuring about having to snap her wand in half.

OOOOOOO

The ride to Cair Paravel took the entire day and much of the next. Hermione was treated kindly, but she wasn't allowed anywhere without an escort. She said nothing, but it was disconcerting that they felt the need for such a guard around her—one girl, even if she was a witch, and a witch without a wand at that.

The castle of Cair Paravel was on the coast, overlooking the sea. Hermione was led through the gate and into a deserted antechamber. She was calm enough to notice that the walls were hung with rich tapestries—most of them featured a lion—and the floor was tiled. She shifted anxiously. Swallowpad, noticing her discomfort, said kindly, "If you have done nothing wrong and are willing to give up your wand, you have nothing to fear."

"Right," Hermione said faintly, as a small door opened and a faun called out, "Their Majesties will see you now!"

She was led—gently but quite firmly—through the doorway and into a bright throne room. Four people sat on four thrones, and Hermione followed Swallowpad's motions, curtseying awkwardly.

"Thou may'st rise," said one of the men, and Hermione stood slowly up again; the one who had spoken sat on the tallest throne, and must, she thought, be the High King. She wondered if the rest were his wife and children—but they all seemed too close in age. "What hast thou found, Swallowpad?" he asked.

"This woman, Your Majesty," said Swallowpad. "She was discovered in Lantern Waste, with a wand; she is a witch, and she does not deny it. She claims not to know whence she comes."

"Is this true?" asked the younger king (prince?), shifting slightly.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Hermione said honestly. "I am a witch, I do own a wand, and I don't know how I got here—though I do know where I was. I come from a place called Scotland."

"How did thou findest thyself here?" asked the youngest of the four, a girl who could not have been Hermione's age, yet.

"I went through a wardrobe," Hermione said awkwardly. "And I came out here."

"Ah," said several voices at once.

"She might be lying, Your Majesty," remarked someone else—one of the fauns, Hermione saw. "It is a well-known story."

"It would not be just to punish an innocent," put in the younger king.

"That is true," the High King said finally, "but neither can we allow a witch free reign. Witch"—this to Hermione—"we cannot know how thou arrivest here, nor why; but we shall not harm thee. But thy wand must be taken from thee and destroyed."

"No!" Hermione cried, and a low murmur went through the room. "Wait, don't—don't snap it. I—my wand is part of me," she explained desperately, "it chose me. Lock it up if you must, I can't do magic without it, but don't snap it."

The High King exchanged a long look with the other three, and finally nodded. "Very well. Thou may'st stay with us at Cair Paravel, in rooms suitable for thy station, and thy wand shall be kept under lock and key, on pain of death. We do this, witch, because Aslan desires us to be merciful in all things, and because thou hast harmed none."

"I, er, thank you, Your Majesty," Hermione managed. She felt naked without a wand, completely vulnerable. But at least it would not be broken, and there was always the chance that when they figured out how she'd managed to stumble into this world, they would give her back her wand and let her leave again.

"Now," said the older of the two women, "thou hast not told us thy name." It was the first time she had spoken, and her voice was like running water.

"Hermione," Hermione managed.

"Then, Hermione, Alambil shall take thee to thy rooms and see thee dressed more comfortably." This seemed to be a dismissal, so Hermione bowed again and backed away, looking around for Alambil, whoever that was.

Alambil turned out to be a tall, willowy girl from a place called Archenland, which was a country to the south of Narnia, the land she was in now. Narnia, Alambil explained cheerfully when they had left the throne room, was ruled by four monarchs—the High King Peter and his siblings: Queen Susan, King Edmund, and Queen Lucy. They had all come out of a place called Spare Oom through a wardrobe, and they had defeated the ruler of Narnia before them, an Empress Jadis. They were, Alambil hastened to assure her, the kindest and fairest of rulers, and as the Narnian court was not particularly keen on ceremony, Hermione would probably come to know them well (Alambil, as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Susan, could vouch for this personally). "For you are a guest," Alambil reminded her. "And I don't think you're a wicked witch, even if I've never heard of any good ones."

"Where I come from," Hermione offered, "witches can be good _or _evil, just like anyone else."

"It has not been so here," was all Alambil said, and she turned the conversation neatly aside—to the layout of the castle, to Hermione's two rooms, to Hermione's gowns (for apparently she was to be dressed in the Narnian style). She was friendly, and since Hermione was still a little unsure of how secure her place was in this world, she did not press the issue but merely allowed Alambil to dress her for the feast as she explained court etiquette and how to find the Great Hall.

OOOOOOO

At the feast, Hermione found herself seated on one side of King Edmund, who looked at her kindly and asked her, after the toast, to recount again how she had come into Narnia. "And thou didst not mean to come into Narnia?" he asked, when she had finished.

"No," Hermione said. "But that—that is how you came here, isn't it? Through a wardrobe, I mean."

"Yes," King Edmund told her. "Like thee, my brother and sisters and I came from another world, through a wardrobe in a spare room in the home of a kind old man who had taken us in during the war—for we were children then," he added, as if to assure her that King Edmund and King Peter (and perhaps the two queens as well, if it came to that) would never shirk from combat, here and now.

"Oh," said Hermione, wondering when and where they could have come from—not Scotland, or at least not her Scotland; there was no war, there. Then. "How does the magic work?"

"Thy guess is as good as mine," he explained. "For it is all controlled by Aslan."

Hermione made a mental note to ask Alambil who Aslan was. "And you…came here, and defeated the woman who ruled Narnia at the time?"

The king regarded her thoughtfully. "Thou might be more careful whom thou callest 'woman', my lady. Jadis was no human."

"It's just Hermione," Hermione said absently, and decided to change the subject. "Who are the other people at the high table?" she asked instead—though she said people, only perhaps a third were actually human; there were fauns and centaurs, dwarfs and the oddly tree-like people Alambil called hamadryads, and all manner of animals.

OOOOOOO

King Edmund was perhaps a year older than Hermione, and she found herself liking him very much; he was direct and chivalrous, and he spoke kindly to her (even if she half-suspected him of thinking her just as wicked as the witch he had displaced). It was only when his attention was required by one of the other lords at the high table that she allowed her gaze to wander around the Great Hall. The room was enormous, with a vaulted ceiling and windows that looked over the sea. The floor was covered in colored tiles—red, yellow, orange—and the walls were hung with rich tapestries. More than half of them featured a lion in some form or another. On the dais was a long table, and four thrones sat behind it. The tallest of these had a lion on the seat-back (Hermione had to wonder if this held some sort of symbolic meaning, or if the Narnians simply liked lions), and that was where the High King sat.

Since there were four monarchs, Hermione sorted them at first glance, as she would any group of four. It wasn't difficult; the High King was a Gryffindor through and through, down to the lion on his throne. His brother, who was quieter and seemed just a little darker, was a Slytherin, and the girls followed—the beautiful Queen Susan to Ravenclaw, and Queen Lucy, who had not stopped smiling the entire feast, was obviously the Hufflepuff of the bunch. For some reason, this made Hermione feel calmer, more at home, and she dug into the next course with more appetite. For a moment, she spared a thought for Ron and Harry—how would they react when she was discovered missing? Especially Ron, who had once faced a den of giant spiders to save her and who now wanted to marry her.

She missed Ron. Harry, at least, would be all right—he might find some way to blame Malfoy, but there was no danger if he poked around in Hogwarts, looking for her. It was Ron who would be up all night, worrying. After a moment, Hermione put her fork down and took a sip of her wine instead. She was _not _going to cry; she was going to find out who this Aslan person was, and she was going to find out how to get home again. And even if King Peter wouldn't return her wand…well, Hermione had functioned without her wand once before, when the Death Eaters had taken it. She would be fine.

OOOOOOO

In the next few weeks, Hermione began to acclimate to her new surroundings. Alambil had cheerfully explained about Aslan, the great Lion, but she had added to that no one knew when he would be back ("It's not like he's a _tame_ lion, you know, or at least that's what the Lord Beaver says," she explained), and so Hermione was next trying the library at Cair Paravel. It was more expansive than she had dared to hope, but it was still not even half the size of her own collection.

King Edmund, when he had heard what she was planning to do, offered to help her find the best books on the subject. He was surprisingly relaxed with her, dropping the "thous" and "thees" and not chiding her the few times she slipped and called him Edmund, instead of Your Majesty. He was even curious about her life before Narnia, her school for witches and wizards and her adventures there. The Narnians called him King Edmund the Just, and Hermione was beginning to see that it fit: Edmund was polite, curious, and fair, and he seemed to absorb information about other cultures and places like a sponge. "Ravenclaw," she said absently one afternoon as they sat in the courtyard and read (again) the only book in the entire library on magic.

"Pardon me?" Edmund said, and Hermione laughed awkwardly.

"Ravenclaw," she repeated. "It just—my school was divided into four Houses, and it just struck me that you were a Ravenclaw. I had thought you a Slytherin, at first."

King Edmund laughed. "Were you in Ravenclaw?"

"Almost," Hermione told him. "But I wound up in Gryffindor."

King Edmund laughed again, and Hermione almost didn't mind that they still hadn't found a way for her to get back through the wardrobe; Narnia was more beautiful than home, and Alambil and Edmund were turning out to be fast friends. Surely a few more weeks wouldn't matter, when she'd already been gone so long?

OOOOOOO

A/N: So there's the first part of five. Reviews make my life—constructive criticism always appreciated. And does anyone know how to get this site to accept underscores? And, for that matter, when they cut parentheses out of summaries?


	2. II Winter

_Winter_

"Hermione! Hermione, wake _up_!" Alambil's voice was close to laughter, and Hermione woke up and rubbed at her eyes with one hand. Neither of them noticed her other hand went instinctively to the wand that wasn't there.

"What time is it?"

"Past three," Alambil said. "Hurry up, get dressed! Put something warm on, we're going outside."

"Outside _where_?" Hermione demanded, but she got up and found her warmest gown and a fur-trimmed cloak with a hood. "What for?"

"It's the Great Snow Dance," Alambil said impatiently, dancing from one foot to another. "They do it every year here, at the first big snowfall—the dwarfs and fauns and dryads, I mean. The whole court is going, and Queen Susan told me to wake you up especially, because she knew you wouldn't know to come out."

"I didn't realize it was snowing," Hermione said as she pulled on her dress and laced up her boots, and then she hesitated a moment. "I thought Narnia was—I mean—after the hundred years of winter and everything?"

"It's not winter that's a problem," Alambil said after a moment. "I mean, so long as you know spring will come later, and it always does, now."

"Oh," Hermione said as she plaited her hair. "I suppose that makes sense."

"Are you nearly ready?" Alambil asked. "The queen is waiting!"

"Yes, I'm ready," Hermione told her, and grabbed her cloak. They dashed down the stairs, giggling like mad (Alambil's excitement was contagious), and met up with Queen Susan and several of her ladies at one of the side doors.

"Ah, Alambil, you found her," the queen said, smiling at them both. Queen Susan's smile was as beautiful as the rest of her, but it did not put Hermione at ease—she had heard of too many knights coming near to blows over who would carry her favor into battle, or share the next dance with her. "Shall we go?" the queen asked. "The others have gone on ahead already."

"Did we keep you?" Hermione asked. "I'm sorry; you needn't have waited."

Queen Susan smiled. "I thought I might escort thee, as it is thy first snow-dance." She offered her arm, and Hermione took it hesitantly, and thus the small party walked into the night.

The dance took place a half-mile or so from the castle ("It is a bit of a walk," Queen Susan said, "but the night is so lovely," and of course they all agreed with her), and they followed a path that had been plowed by the revelers who had gone on before. The sky was clear, and the stars and huge moon shone brightly above them. Hermione named a few of the constellations as their boots crunched the snow: there was the Ship, and the Leopard, as well as the Lyre and Fledge, which looked almost like a flying horse if you turned your head and squinted. "This happens every year?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, on the first moonlit night when there's snow on the ground," one of the ladies-in-waiting explained. "We've been looking forward to it all year."

In another moment, Hermione heard music—wild, sweet music that floated over the snow like wind. There were several flutes, and something under them that sounded like violins, and then drumming beneath it all. And then they were close enough to see a great bonfire, with people sitting and standing all around it, and Hermione could see the dance itself: a circle of fauns and dryads dancing a dance so complicated it made her dizzy to remember it; around them was a ring of dwarfs throwing packed snowballs in between the dancers, in time with the music. It was an eerie dance, somehow; Hermione felt almost as if it were working some sort of magic on her heart, but a different kind of magic than any they'd ever taught at Hogwarts. She drew her cloak more tightly around her with her free hand, and Queen Susan seemed to notice, because she squeezed Hermione's arm. "It is beautiful, is it not?" she whispered. "The Narnians have been doing it every winter, time out of mind."

"It is beautiful, Your Majesty," Hermione whispered back. If it were Edmund, she realized, she would be hearing all about the possible theories on the origin of the dance—but Susan wasn't interested in that sort of thing. She was the Queen everyone went to when important decisions had to be made—not to decide the just and proper course of action (for that was Edmund's part), nor to proclaim it (for that was the High King's), but to break the news gently to all involved and soothe ruffled feathers, should there be any. And she was terribly practical; Hermione had heard of plenty of thorny diplomatic dilemmas that Queen Susan had coolly decided—for though she did not ride to the wars and hated bloodshed, she was calm enough when the enemy was far away.

Hermione was beginning to think she had sorted Susan wrongly, just as she had mis-sorted Edmund: Susan was clearly a Slytherin, practical and cunning, even if she was gentle about it. But then, Hermione was beginning to think she had sorted them _all _wrong—for Queen Lucy was called Queen Lucy the Valiant, and the High King was loyal, loyal to Narnia and the Narnians, and to Aslan the great Lion. And there were King Peter's lions, too, of course: surely any king who had a lion on his throne and his shield would be in Hufflepuff House, whose mascot was a lion--or was that Gryffindor? For Hermione was beginning to forget. It had started with the little things—the number of Weasleys, or the names of her grandparents, and she would sit up all night and _think_, in order to remember them. But now it was the bigger things, the more important things, and it unnerved her. The day she woke up and realized she could no longer remember, for instance, the color of Harry's eyes—it had shaken her to the core.

But she still wasn't sure if they were brown or blue.

"Hermione?" Alambil said, and Hermione looked up, startled out of her reverie. The Queen had moved on, and Alambil was pressing a steaming mug into her hands. "Here, drink this, you look a bit pale."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "The music—it's a bit…not frightening, exactly, but—"

"Unnerving?" Alambil suggested. "I mean, in the literal sense? That it does things to your nerves?"

Hermione had to smile. "Yes," she agreed. "Exactly like that."

They fell silent, then, watching the dancers and the flying snow in the moonlight.

OOOOOOO

Snow had been covering the land for weeks when Alambil came to Hermione's room in tears. "What is it?" Hermione asked immediately, putting an arm around her and guiding her to the bed. "What's wrong?"

It took Alambil a few minutes to recover herself, and Hermione found a handkerchief and handed it to her. Alambil wiped her eyes and sniffed loudly. "I'm being sent away," she said finally.

"Sent away?" Hermione repeated. "What do you mean? Sent away where?"

"Back to Archenland!" Alambil said, and this brought on another wave of crying. "My father," she explained through her tears, "has called me back home, because he wants me to find a _husband_!"

Hermione rubbed her back sympathetically. "Can you tell him you don't want to go?"

"No!" she wailed. "He didn't want me to come here before, and now I've been here for five years already, and he says I have to go home and how will I _bear _it?" She collapsed, sobbing, into Hermione's pillows.

"He can't be such a troll," Hermione said practically. "Or if he is, why don't you speak to Queen Susan?"

"We would say ogre," Alambil said with a sniffle, but Hermione's words must have cheered her, because she sat up. "Trolls haven't been seen in thousands and thousands of years. Did you have them where you came from?"

Hermione had to stop and think at that. She was almost sure there _had _been trolls, in that—that other place, Pigspots or wherever it was, but she couldn't remember. Perhaps it had been an ogre, instead, that Ralph and Henry had rescued her from. "What if you made a compromise with your father?" she suggested. "You could promise to go home for a year or a season, and then if you haven't found someone you could come back." She hesitated a moment. "He wouldn't force you to marry, would he?"

"Of course not!" Alambil cried, shocked. "This isn't Calormen, Hermione. Women aren't forced against their will."

"Right," Hermione said. "Then what have you to worry about? You might meet someone you love, in Archenland; and if you don't, then surely he'll let you come back?"

"But—how can I leave you? And the _queen_?"

Hermione cast about for something comforting to say. "You'll still be able to visit, surely," she said. "And maybe I can come visit you; and you know Queen Susan will go to Archenland, on visits of state. And if you _do _meet someone in Archenland, that would be worth a year away from us, don't you think? Falling in love is like magic."

Alambil regarded her curiously. "Have you been in love, then?"

Hermione frowned, taken aback at the question. "I don't think so," she said, for she couldn't remember ever falling in love, back in that other place. "But I know that's how it feels," she added firmly—because she did.

Alambil sniffed again. "I believe you," she said finally. "And I still don't want to go—but I will, anyway. And you _will _come visit, won't you? In the spring, perhaps?"

"Of _course_," Hermione said firmly.

Alambil was quiet for a moment. "Hermione?" she asked after a moment.

"Yes?"

"While I'm gone, Queen Susan will need someone else for a lady-in-waiting. She said I ought not to worry about it, that she would manage—but would you take my place? And then when I come back, you could—could step aside and let me back in?" She was biting her lip. "I've spoken to the Queen and she says that would be fine, and you don't have to and I know I have no right to ask, but…"

Hermione surprised herself by nodding. "I wouldn't mind," she said. She liked Queen Susan, who was gracious and gentle and by all accounts kind to her ladies, and she didn't want Alambil, who was her closest friend here, to feel hurt. "I would be honored," she added, because the situation seemed to require it.

Alambil broke into an enormous grin and flung her arms around Hermione. "Oh, thank you, thank you!"

OOOOOOO

Hermione moved quarters the day after Alambil left. The ladies-in-waiting lived in rooms adjoining the Queen's rooms, and she shared with a girl named Helen, a distant cousin of Alambil's. Helen was very quiet and seemed to be carrying on a furtive romance with a river god, so Hermione did not see her very often. Unlike her sister's, Queen Susan's ladies were mostly human, and the few naiads and dryads among them were much less wild than Queen Lucy's, who were known to accompany her on midnight romps and even into battle. Queen Susan seemed to prefer quiet companionship, and often retired to her rooms after a night of feasting and dancing to listen to the quieter, calmer music of a harp. She was wonderful to talk to, affectionate and loving, and beautiful besides; Hermione saw immediately that there were more men after Queen Susan's hand than she had known about as a mere guest, and it was the job of the ladies-in-waiting to preserve the quiet of her rooms, so that the suitors could not bother her there. "Do you think you will marry?" she dared to ask one night, and the Queen merely smiled.

"I suppose one of us must," she said finally. "For we cannot rule indefinitely."

Though the Queen did not mention it, Hermione knew the problem: would a consort come between the four? Would he (or she) be welcomed as a fifth ruler, or would there be a divide? And, if two of them happened to marry and produce children, which would rule after their death? And even if Susan _did _marry, would she be expected to leave for her husband's country? "Would it be easier for your brothers?" Hermione asked, hardly believing her daring.

"I do not think Edmund is ready for a wife," Queen Susan said lightly, with a laugh, and then she called for an end to the music, saying she was tired and wished to go to bed. Helen went with her, and Hermione was left to walk slowly back to her room, thinking it all over and wondering whom, in the end, Queen Susan would choose.

Other than sitting and talking with the Queen, Hermione's tasks as lady-in-waiting were very slight. Sometimes they might ride with her on a hunt, or sit with her during a tournament; occasionally, the Queen would pick one or two girls to accompany her on a visit to the home of a nearby lord. And every night the Queen shared her bed with one of her ladies; castles were drafty, and queens needed someone there to vouch for their virtue (though who would dare to impugn Queen Susan's virtue, or who would believe it if he did, was unclear to Hermione). This had not surprised her—indeed, aside from muttering a little bit about the misogynistic nature of it (for surely kings were not subject to the same rule), Hermione had not noticed it much, except to note that it was a great honor and to wonder what to do if the Queen turned out to snore.

OOOOOOO

Alambil had been gone a month before Queen Susan smiled at Hermione and said, "Wilt thou join me tonight?"

"Of course," Hermione said, and Queen Susan led her into the great royal bedchamber. She helped the Queen into her nightshift, and Susan allowed Hermione to brush her hair, which was long and dark and fell nearly to her feet.

"Are you happy here?" the Queen asked her, after several moments of silence.

"Yes," Hermione answered immediately. "It is beautiful here, Your Majesty, and you have all been so kind."

"And thou dost not miss—thy old home?"

"No," Hermione told her slowly, honestly. "I don't—remember much of it, you see. And what I do remember, I only remember like you might a dream."

"Ah," said the Queen. "So it is with us. Aslan's doing, no doubt."

"No doubt," Hermione agreed. She still wished to meet this Aslan, to whom even the High King swore fealty. "Do you think you will ever go back there?"

"I should hope not," the Queen said. "I would not want to leave Narnia."

Hermione smiled. "Understandable," she said. What she did not say was, _Does it frighten you_? For Hermione privately thought the Queen Susan to be the most afraid, of all the monarchs. That was not to say she was a coward, but…Queen Susan did not like the unknown, and she did not like change. Of course she would not want to leave Narnia. Hermione found herself wondering if Queen Susan had wanted to come _into _Narnia, in the beginning.

The Queen yawned.

"Oh!" Hermione said. "Your Majesty, are you tired?"

"Yes, a bit," Susan said, and Hermione helped her into bed and tucked her in before blowing out the tapers and slipping in next to her. The bed was warm and soft, and the sheets felt like they were made of silk. She sighed in contentment, and Susan whispered, "Art thou comfortable?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Hermione replied. She'd thought the Queen had wanted to sleep, but it seemed instead she wanted to talk.

"What dost thou think of the Calormene prince?"

"I think he's very brave," Hermione answered vaguely.

"That is no answer at all," Susan chided gently. "My royal brother thinks he means to court me. What dost thou think of that?"

The thought that the Queen might have to go far away to the south was not a comforting one. "Isn't Calmash the second son, not the heir-apparent?" Hermione asked. "Maybe you should wait for him to come courting you. And anyway, would Narnia stand for a half-Calormene heir? You said yourself that they have very different traditions, especially when it comes to government."

"Thou speakest the truth," the Queen said, but then she added, "though it may not matter, in the end, what the Narnians wish. We must have a ruler, when the four of us are dead."

"But you are young," Hermione reasoned. "The four of you, I mean. And doesn't King Peter say Aslan will provide?"

"Aye," said the Queen. "But he provided for the White Witch; and he acts in his own time, and not ours."

After a moment, Hermione said quietly, "But every king wants you for a bride. Couldn't you wait to pick one you like?"

"I should like to," Queen Susan said, wistfully, and then suddenly she rolled over and kissed Hermione, very gently, on the mouth. Hermione was too stunned to move for a moment, and then she slowly, tentatively, kissed back.

OOOOOOO

After that, her nights with Queen Susan always began the same way: the gentle, hesitant kisses, and then her hands moving over Hermione's body, and both of them trying to stifle their cries. Queen Susan would whisper, afterward, that it—this—didn't count, not between them, two women. And Hermione believed her, or allowed herself to believe, because the Queen's virtue and worth, on the international marriage-market, must be preserved, and because, deep down, she felt almost as if there was something (someone?) that meant she shouldn't allow the kisses or the touches—which was silly, because she had never been in love, and she had been in Narnia half a year already.

She did wonder, sometimes, if Queen Susan was as forward with the other ladies-in-waiting, if that was why Alambil hadn't wanted to leave. But Hermione knew she could not ask, and no one else volunteered the information. After all, ladies-in-waiting had to be discreet. And she did not mind; Susan was a wonderful lover, gentle and kind and surprisingly skilled, and Hermione was lonely, with Alambil gone and King Edmund off to the Lone Islands on affairs of state. But it was still difficult, not to tell anyone she was having an affair with the Queen, and to know that any moment a foreigner might catch Susan's eye.

Queen Susan was careful, of course, not to show Hermione too much favor, and so they sometimes went days without being alone together. Hermione thought she should care, but in some ways that was easier. And as the days grew longer again and the snow began to melt, she began to spend more time outside—not with the Queen, but walking alone, through the Narnian woods. Sometimes she listened to the merpeople, who tended to surface occasionally to sing madrigals.

"Hermione!" Hermione turned to see Helen dashing towards her, hair flying. "Come quick, there's to be a _tournament _the next month, and everyone is to have new gowns made, and the Queen wants your assistance with the dressmakers!"

Hermione had to laugh, and she followed Helen back down the path and into the castle, where Queen Susan stood on a stool, surrounded by dressmakers and mirrors and swaths of fabric. "Ah, Hermione!" she exclaimed, when they had entered and curtsied. "Which dost thou think, the blue or the green?"

Hermione considered the colors carefully. Both looked stunning on Susan, who could probably wear tree bark and get away with it. "The green," she said finally. "It suits you better."

Susan laughed, and twirled around in front of the mirror, and the dressmakers switched the blue fabric for green and started arguing about sleeves.

"It won't change anything, this tournament," Susan said later, when they were in bed. "Between thee and me, I mean."

"I know," Hermione said with a smile. "I trust you."

OOOOOOO

A/N: If it belongs to JKR or C. S. Lewis, it's not mine. The title comes from Psalm 84 by way of the Anglican hymn "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling-Place".

T. M. Hatter and Ill Ame beta'd this for me, for which I am eternally grateful. All mistakes are, of course, my own.

A note on the formal speech—Narnian and Archenlander royalty use an odd combination of British slang and formal speech, so I've had them using thee/thou in formal speech; it seemed like something that King Frank and Queen Helen (and later, the four children) would think of as "high speech". I have not used the royal we much, even though the Pevensies use it sometimes. So if there are mistakes, think of them as the Pevensies', and not mine. :)

This is the second part of four and a halfish--the rest are still in the editing phase. And now I am off to see _Prince Caspian_ (who knows, maybe the movie will inspire me. I adore Caspian). Reviews and constructive criticism are always appreciated!


	3. III Spring

_Spring_

But after the tournament, Queen Susan changed. It had taken place on a sunny day, and Queen Lucy (whose birthday it happened to be) had dropped her handkerchief to begin the first match. There were kings and princes from all over the world, and King Lune, who had come from Archenland with his son, Prince Corin, had swept the field, unhorsing many knights. Queen Susan's eyes had followed him during each fight, and the first time he was unhorsed, she had gasped and was half out of her seat before Queen Lucy managed to get to him, uncapping her cordial.

Alambil, who had come with his court, had explained that his success was quite unexpected; King Lune had not entered a tournament since the one in which he had won the hand of his queen, and she had been dead a long time—died of grief, Alambil whispered, after they lost their son, Corin's older brother and the heir to the throne. That he should do so well was shocking, and that Queen Susan should watch him so carefully even more so. "But," Alambil had added thoughtfully, "it would be a good match, you know. King Lune is descended from King Frank and Queen Helen, and if they were to have children—well, can you imagine? Narnia would finally be ruled by the descendants of her first king and queen!"

"Yes," Hermione had replied absently, watching Susan watching Lune. "There is that."

"And Narnia will need an heir," Alambil had pointed out.

"Of course," Hermione had agreed, but she remembered the Queen saying softly, _It won't change anything, this tournament, between thee and me._ And yet, before its end, Hermione had moved from her room with Helen back to her old rooms. "Alambil might wish to be with her cousin," the Queen had said, but there were other beds open, and Hermione's rooms were halfway across the castle.

There was dancing every night, for the tournament and Queen Susan's romance and simply for the spring—the Narnians loved the spring. Hermione had taken to hiding in corners, unsure of her position, unsure of her feelings towards Susan, unsure of Susan's feelings toward _her_. "What is it?" Alambil had asked finally, looking at her with concern. "Did something happen, while I was gone? Something you didn't put in your letters?"

"I—no," Hermione had replied, smiling a little. Ladies-in-waiting, after all, had to be discreet. "And you? Did you meet anyone?"

"No," Alambil said with a sigh. "But I have heard that Queen Susan might be making a trip to Anvard, and perhaps she will convince Father to let me go back with her, if she'll take me."

"I would like that," Hermione had said with a smile. "If your father would let you stay here."

"Oh, I hope he will!" Alambil had cried. "And—I hope this visit stretches on _forever_, Hermione. Don't you?"

"Yes," Hermione had said, because she did—at least, the part of it that meant seeing Alambil every day. The rest was more difficult, and Hermione was not sure where she stood. "Alambil, what was Queen Lucy doing on the field, when King Lune was unhorsed? I could tell she was healing him, but wouldn't that be better left to doctors?"

"It's her gift," Alambil had replied, and launched into an explanation of how, when the four monarchs had arrived in Narnia, three of them had received gifts from Father Christmas—a healing cordial and a dagger for Lucy, a bow and arrow and a magical horn for Susan, and a shield and sword for Peter.

"What about Edmund?" Hermione had asked.

"He wasn't there," Alambil said awkwardly. "He—it's not polite to speak of."

"Oh," Hermione had said. "I see."

OOOOOOO

King Edmund arrived from Galma a week after the tournament, and he and Queen Susan talked seriously in the corridors; the High King and King Lune went riding each morning, looking just as serious. Hermione felt her stomach sink slightly each time she saw them, but it sank less than she expected it to; she was beginning to believe that she had not been in love with Susan, and it almost didn't matter what Susan had felt. The Queen was far more concerned with the fate of her country—as, perhaps, she should be.

Hermione had taken to walking the coast again; it was much more pleasant, now that the flowers were out and the birds back from the south. She met High King Peter there along the coast one morning, whistling as he looked over the water. The tune was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it. "Hermione," he said, half turning.

She dropped a quick curtsy. "Your Majesty."

"Come, walk with me," he said, and she scurried to stand next to him. For a moment, she tried to walk one step behind him, but the High King firmly took her arm, and she walked in step with him. "Thou art one of my sister's ladies, art thou not?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "Or at least, I was for a while."

"What dost thou think of King Lune, then? It seems my royal sister is quite taken with him."

"I think he fought very bravely, Your Majesty," Hermione said truthfully.

"Anyone could know that," King Peter said. "Dost thou like him, as a man?"

"Yes," she said, "the little I know of him. He seems very kind to his son, and he is very chivalrous, and very articulate."

"Dost thou think he and my sister suited?"

Hermione considered it. In the spring sunlight, out of the dark confines of the Queen's bedchamber, it was easy to nod. "He is very humble, and I think he might make a good husband—certainly everyone says he treated his first wife very well."

King Peter was silent for a moment. "I want my sister to be happy," he said. "And I want my country to be secure. This land has seen a hundred years of winter and bloodshed—it cannot bear much more. It _should _not bear much more."

"Of course," Hermione replied quietly. "Everyone wants that. But—Your Majesty, you are young, all of you. You have never all been in battle together; there is—it would be extremely difficult for anyone to—to kill you all, would it not?"

"Difficult things have happened," the High King said with a sigh. "And—we came into this country by chance, and Aslan's will; we might leave it any day, in the same way."

"Do you remember anything of where you came from?" Hermione dared to ask.

"No," he said frankly. "I would not even remember the wardrobe, if Lucy had not told the story so many times. Is it the same for thee?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "I—sometimes feel like I've caught a glimpse of something, or caught a scent, that reminds me of home; but it's gone before I can isolate what it is."

"And thy wand? Dost thou miss it?"

Hermione started. "No," she said finally. "I can barely remember any spells," she admitted, and it had been months since she'd woken with her hands clenched around empty air.

"Thou once spakest of it as part of thyself."

"Yes," Hermione said. "But…I suppose it is different, here."

"I am glad," he said with a smile, and then he added, apologetically. "I must go. But thou and I, we will speak again."

And, much to Hermione's surprise, they _did _speak again—most afternoons, she would bump into him in the wood; or if she did not, he would seek her out that night, during the feasting. He was always honorable, and he did not touch her except to take her arm, sometimes, or—once—her hands, for a dance. But he asked her opinion on all sorts of matters, from politics to philosophy to what sort of fruit-trees should go in the orchard they were planning, and after he asked her to call him by his given name for the third time, Hermione dropped "Your Majesty" for "Peter." The rest of the court had begun to watch her more carefully, and to court her favor; even Alambil treated her differently. "Hermione," she had said timidly one night, "they're planning, the Queen Susan, I mean, to go to Anvard soon, and—I'd just as soon not go; Father wants me to stay there, and I—I don't wish to. Do you think you might ask the High King about it?"

Hermione had stared at her in amazement. "Wouldn't Queen Susan be the better choice?" she asked. "And why would he listen to me about it? He's not an ogre, Alambil, ask him yourself."

"But he would listen to you," Alambil said quietly. "If you asked him as a favor—he would listen. You could even say you wanted me to stay just for you, for your comfort, and he would listen."

Hermione had shaken her head, but promised to ask anyway—and sure enough, Peter promised to send a messenger with the Queen's party, to explain the matter to Alambil's father and ask if she could stay, as a personal favor to the High King. "We will move your chambers, as well," he said, "and the two of you will sleep in the east wing."

The east wing was closer to the High King's chambers, Hermione knew, but why on earth he felt he could (or ought to) take one of the Queen's ladies and move her in with Hermione was the better question.

Finally, fed up with the attention of court and the fact that there seemed to be several knights flanking her at all times, she asked Edmund about it. "What's going _on_?" she demanded as they sat in the library.

"It's a question of your honor," Edmund told her quietly, moving his rook (they played chess in the library now that Hermione had stopped looking for a way to get home; Edmund nearly always won). "That's why he's insisting on moving Alambil in as soon as possible; she'll be able to say that your, ah, bed is not shared."

Hermione's mouth dropped open. "No one's ever cared about that before," she said faintly. "People could have been—well, I mean, I've always been alone at night before, except when I was serving the Queen Susan."

"Yes, of course," Edmund said patiently. "But he's courting you now, you see, and everything must be above board—if you were to become Queen of Narnia, you know, it wouldn't due to have your honor in question; it's bad enough as it is, that you were a witch."

"My _honor_?" Hermione repeated, and then: "_Courting me_?"

"Indeed," Edmund said. "Didn't you realize?"

"I—no," she said, although of course now everything was clear. It was just that when it came to courting, Peter's way was much different than Susan's: quieter, more subtle. "He isn't physical about it, and we're never alone."

"Of course not," Edmund said. "What if you were to fall in love with another man, and bear his child? You or he might claim it for Peter's, or the child might, when he was grown—not, you know, that I am trying to impugn your honor; I would fight any man who spoke against you, and Peter would be there before me. But there is always the question."

"Of course," Hermione said, and she did understand. "But I thought—he has not spoken of his intentions."

"No," Edmund said slowly. "He wouldn't; Peter likes to have everything done properly, and I think he's waiting to see whether or not Susan likes Lune enough to marry him. It wouldn't do to steal her thunder."

"No," Hermione echoed. "It wouldn't." She moved her castle, and then Edmund took her knight.

"Check," he said. "You have not said how you feel about him, you know."

"I had not thought," she said, moving her king out of danger. "And I don't know anything about how to be a queen."

Edmund smiled. "It is easy enough to learn," he said. "Both my sisters did."

"Yes," Hermione said, smiling. "So they did."

OOOOOOO

She went riding with Peter the next morning, and the morning after that; and Alambil came with them both times, staying a discreet distance away. There was something strange about this romance; Hermione felt as if she were in a dance whose steps she did not quite know. And yet Peter was there to catch her when she stumbled, to teach her to shoot to kill (for Susan, though her arrows never missed, hated to kill) and to stay on a horse when he jumped.

"Thou art getting better," he told her cheerfully, when she had managed to (barely) stay on her mare as they went over a ditch. "Perhaps a gallop?"

"No-o," Hermione said, catching her breath. "What if we stopped for tea?"

Peter laughed, dismounting easily and then helping her off her own horse. A valet appeared from behind a tree to take the reigns, and Peter lent a hand to Alambil—purely a gesture, since Alambil was an accomplished horsewoman—and then called for their tea.

They stayed out late that night, talking and laughing. Alambil disappeared after a few hours, to pick flowers, she said. Hermione had never known her friend to take more than a cursory interest in plants, and she gave her a grateful smile. Peter was surprisingly talkative, and she was, after a bit, able to convince him to tell her about his adventures—not the wars, for neither of them wanted to talk about those, but about the dances and festivals and about Aslan.

"He is—he is greater than anyone I have ever known," Peter told her honestly. "You would have to meet him, to understand."

"Alambil says he does not often come by," Hermione whispered. It was the first time Peter had addressed her informally, as an equal.

"She is right; but I have often thought that—maybe—he would come for my wedding, if my bride had never met him before." And his fingers brushed over her hair as he spoke. Hermione reached her hand up and took his, and for a moment they stayed there, frozen, their fingers entwined.

She was, Hermione realized suddenly, falling in love with him, as she had never (_could _never have, she had begun to think) loved his sister. "Yes," she whispered simply, and his hold on her hand tightened.

OOOOOOO

"I think I love him," she confessed to Alambil several nights later, when they were both in bed. "And—now that Queen Susan and King Edmund have gone to Anvard, I am—I cannot help but hope that perhaps…perhaps it will work out, somehow."

"Has he spoken of marriage?" Alambil asked eagerly.

"Not in so many words," Hermione said. "Not directly. But sometimes I think he's thinking of it, and he asked, last night, if when the new ship is finished, he could name if for me."

Alambil sat up in bed. "Hermione," she said slowly, "that is wonderful!"

Hermione couldn't help smiling. "Yes," she said. "I'm falling in love with him, Alambil. I can't help it. He's just so—"

"Yes," Alambil said when Hermione couldn't finish. "I know what you mean."

"People are saying," Hermione added after a moment, "that I've bewitched him."

"As if you would," Alambil said, and then added, "as if you could. Aslan watches over him—and anyway, how could you bewitch him? You haven't got your wand, and you wouldn't, anyway. And the White Witch is dead."

"I don't want to cause a civil war, either," Hermione whispered.

"You won't," Alambil said confidently. "People might grumble, but the High King is the High King, and the other three like you—even Queen Lucy, and people say she's closest to Aslan of any of them."

Hermione nodded, and then realized Alambil couldn't see her, in the darkness. "Thank you," she said instead, and Alambil squeezed her hand in sympathy.

Just the same, it was a long time before Hermione was able to fall asleep.

OOOOOOO

The Narnians held an enormous celebration when the last of the stars turned in their paces to the summer constellations, and Alambil told her it was customary to give gifts. It was easy enough to find a bracelet for Alambil, and new chess pieces for Edmund (Hermione had a vague memory of being taught chess in a country where everyone had their own chess sets—and an even odder idea that these pieces _spoke_, which was clearly nonsense), and gifts for the two queens. It was Peter whose gift was the most difficult—because what would he want, that she could give? And how, if she gave him what she wanted to give, could she wrap it? It was impossible to wrap up a heart.

In the end, she painstakingly copied out his favorite poems into a small book, so he could reference them more easily—he was always forgetting the words to the more obscure verses, and it irked him. The feast, for this festival, was outside, under the moon and stars, and when the bonfire had died down and everyone had had his (or her) full and filled his (or her) goblet for the last time with sweet Narnian wine, they all found places under the trees and put their feet towards the fire. Several fauns had brought flutes with them, and their music drifted up through the branches of the trees and to the stars themselves, who seemed to look down at them and even (if you looked long and hard enough) to dance to the eerie notes. "For you," she whispered, and when she handed him the book, she hoped he would realize that it was not just a book she was giving him, nor just her time; for she had made sure to begin with the love songs.

Peter looked through it and smiled at her. "Thank you," he said solemnly. "It is beautiful."

Hermione smiled, and then he took her hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it. "I did not make your gift myself," he said finally, "but I hope it will suffice." And he took out a small box and handed it to her. Hermione opened it one-handed, because her other hand was still in Peter's, and she did not want to take it back. In the box was a small silver circlet, like the sort the higher nobility wore.

"Peter," she gasped.

"I want to make you a Duchess," he whispered, "and I shall—and it will be announced for the whole court—but I want to do it here, now."

"Yes," she whispered, "of course."

Hermione could barely hear as he called the nobility around them to make her a Duchess of Lantern waste. She gave her answers by rote and almost didn't notice when the circlet touched her hair: she was concentrating solely on his hands where they touched her skin. When she shivered, he put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close.

"I love you," she whispered, when the conversation had died down.

She was nearly asleep against his shoulder when she heard him whisper, "And I love you."

OOOOOOO

A/N: I still don't own Hermione Granger, Narnia, or the Pevensies. The title still comes from "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling-Place", and the hymn still gets it from Psalm 84.

This was beta'd by T. Mad Hatter and Ill Ame; they both rock a ton and deserve eternal thanks and praises and that sort of thing.

As always, criticism appreciated!


	4. IV Summer

_Summer_

As the days grew longer and longer, Hermione and Peter spent most of their time outside. The Kings practiced their swordplay every morning, and Hermione always went to watch and to cheer them on. Edmund was not as good as Peter—not as tall or broad, and not always as quick on his feet—but in this case, "not as good as Peter" still meant "much better than most." Their matches were wonderful to watch, and sometimes the Queen Lucy would come and sit with Hermione, and explain the finer points of swordsmanship to her (though the Queen did not carry a sword, she could use one if pressed—a bow was her weapon of choice). "We should teach you to fight," the Queen said one morning.

"I can use a bow," Hermione said. "Do I need to use a sword, too?"

"I think every woman should be able to defend herself, if it comes to that," Queen Lucy answered gravely. "And queens even more so."

Hermione nodded, and the Queen said no more about it; but the unspoken assumption that Hermione would, one day soon, become a queen herself hung between them. When Hermione turned back to watch Peter, she found him watching her, with a smile.

"Perhaps," Queen Lucy said slowly, "we should start sooner than I thought—how does today sound?"

"Right now?" Hermione asked, and the Queen smiled and nodded.

She sent a page off for two daggers ("We may as well begin with those," she explained), and then took Hermione to a corner of the soon-to-be apple orchard to demonstrate how to hold a dagger, and what to do with it. The knife was dwarf-wrought, nearly impossible to break, and it glinted mutely in the sun. "You can kill with this," the Queen said seriously, "so it's best to be careful."

Hermione took the blade from her and held it carefully. "Have you ever used yours?"

"Once or twice," the Queen said quietly. "I prefer to use my bow, but arrows will do you no good in close quarters."

Hermione nodded, feeling very solemn, and followed Queen Lucy's example, thrusting against imaginary opponents and stabbing them where she judged their hearts were. "That's better," the Queen said, when they had been at it for several hours. "We shall have to talk to the arms master about it, and see if he will take you on."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Hermione answered, panting.

"Oh, honestly," said the Queen. "Call me Lucy; you call Edmund and Peter by their first names, and they are much more formal than I."

"Lucy, then," Hermione said with a smile. "But if you don't mind, I think I am going to go change my clothing."

"Yes, of course," the Queen said, and Hermione sheathed her dagger and dashed off. When she looked back, Lucy and Edmund and Peter were all standing together, talking quietly. They were all smiling, and Lucy, who was laughing, had her hand on Peter's arm.

OOOOOOO

"Our royal sister is to return for Midsummer," Edmund told her one afternoon, and Hermione smiled.

"Do you know what she has decided?"

"No," Edmund said with a laugh. "When I left them, she and King Lune were flirting and dancing every night, and she and Prince Corin were getting on admirably—but I do not know my sister's mind, or her heart."

"I don't think anyone could," Hermione said quietly. "She keeps it well-hidden."

"Yes," Edmund said, "she does. More so now than she used to, I sometimes think. But that was not why I mentioned it."

"Oh? What was your reason, then?"

"Peter thinks we should hold a ball, on Midsummer's Eve, outside. Then if Susan has anything she wishes to announce, she can announce it among all her friends." He hesitated a fraction of a second. "I think," he added, "that Peter is growing tired of waiting."

Hermione felt her heart leap into her mouth. "That's good," she said finally, for Edmund seemed to be waiting for some response. "Because I am growing tired of waiting as well."

Edmund smiled. "As, I think, are we all. And—and I say this, please understand, with all the respect I have for you—you _are _fertile, aren't you? It is just—Narnia will need an heir."

Hermione felt herself flush. "I am healthy," she said. "And didn't you say Aslan watches over this country?"

"There is that," Edmund said thoughtfully. "Perhaps he will come to the wedding."

It was the first time anyone had, directly, mentioned Hermione and Peter marrying, and she felt a thrill run through her entire body.

OOOOOOO

Midsummer's Eve dawned warm and sunny, with a slight breeze rustling the leaves (or perhaps that was the dryads, showing their appreciation for the preparations for the ball). "You haven't told me the color of your gown," Peter said quietly, startling her, and Hermione turned to face him with a happy smile.

"I didn't know you wanted to know the color," she said. "But it's yellow, like sunlight."

Peter laughed. "Somehow," he said, "I thought it might be, so I found these"—and he brought out a small box. When Hermione opened it, she saw a necklace and bracelet, both set with citrine stones the color of the sun.

"Oh!" she gasped.

"You will wear them, won't you?" he asked. "For me?"

"Yes," she told him. "Yes, of course, thank you!"

He leaned in closer as she shut the box and whispered, "There is another piece, but I thought it should wait until tonight."

She could barely breath for happiness, but when she finally gasped out, "Oh, _Peter_," it was enough.

OOOOOOO

The ball was set up on a great lawn, close enough to the sea to hear the merpeople, who had come out of the water to sing. There was also a team of musicians, the best in the court, who sat up in the trees and played, so it sounded as if the music was drifting down towards them from the stars. Hermione wore the yellow gown, and the matching bracelet and necklace, and whenever she caught Peter's eye, she blushed. "You are the most beautiful woman here," he whispered in her ear when he took her arm to start the first dance, and Hermione thought that she had never been happier.

She danced with Edmund next, and he twirled her around on the floor to the whirlwind music. "I am happy for you," he said firmly.

"He hasn't asked me yet," Hermione felt compelled to point out.

Edmund merely smiled. "But you're wearing jewels that once belonged to Queen Helen, the first queen of Narnia," he said quietly. "He wouldn't have given them to you unless he intended to propose—and anyway, the ring's missing from the set."

"I know," Hermione said. "He said that it should wait until tonight."

"You see?" Edmund said.

He passed her back to Peter next, and then she danced with the minor lords and the Calormene ambassador, and even joined hands with Susan and Lucy for a long winding dance through the trees. That was when a hush fell over the crowd, and even the musicians stilled. "What is it?" she asked Lucy.

"Aslan," Lucy whispered, her eyes shining. "They're saying he's quite close, somewhere."

"Aah," Hermione whispered, and they all dropped hands and looked around for the lion, hoping to catch a glimpse of him through the trees. But after several minutes, the moment passed away, and the musicians took up their bows again.

"Perhaps they were mistaken," Queen Susan said thoughtfully, and took up Hermione's hands again; but Queen Lucy shook her head.

"I _felt_ him," she insisted, and then she kissed them both on the cheek and walked out of the clearing, disappearing amongst trees who took her hands with their branches. Queen Susan shook her head, bemused, as the line started up again.

"Hermione," someone said, and she turned to see Peter. She dropped hands with Susan and the hamadryad on her left and ran towards him.

"What is it?" she asked when she got closer, for he looked…older. Sadder. "Peter?"

"It's no use," he said sadly. "I've just spoken to Aslan—well, he's spoken to me—and it's no use, you and I."

"Peter?" she whispered. "What do you mean, it's no use?"

"He says you're to go—on—and I to stay here, and that—" He broke off, and Hermione realized with a sudden sinking feeling that he was trying not to cry. Tentatively, she took his hand in hers, and he gripped it like a drowning man. "I love you," he said finally, very steadily. "And I would marry you, if I could; I would make you queen of Narnia, and I would make your sons princes and your daughters princesses. But it's—I cannot work against Aslan, Hermione, and I wouldn't even if I could."

She was about to argue when she saw him swallow heavily, and she bit back her words with the sudden realization that he was being entirely truthful: he _did _love her, and though he was obeying Aslan, it was tearing him apart inside. She felt a sudden wave of fury against this—this creature, who demanded loyalty and obedience and made Peter's eyes tear up like this.

"Hermione," came a deep voice from the edge of the clearing, and when she turned there was an enormous lion there. Everyone—even Peter the High King—went down on one knee before him, but Hermione could only stare in the creature's dark eyes, which were deep and warm. "Hermione," it said again.

"Aslan," she half-whispered, half-cried, and her fury left as suddenly as it had come.

"Daughter of Eve," he said, "walk with me."

She nodded, and then she turned back and kissed Peter, desperately, on the mouth; and he kissed her back and entwined his fingers through her hair. "I will always love you," he whispered, when he had pulled away. "Always."

"I know," she whispered. "And I will always love you. And—and maybe we will meet again, somewhere. Somehow."

"Yes," was all Peter said, and she squeezed his hand once more and walked towards Aslan.

"Daughter," he said, and when he breathed on her face, Hermione realized she was crying. His breath, though, seemed to send a sort of strength through her, a sort of serenity, and she drew in one shaking breath and let it out again, more calmly this time. "We have much to discuss, you and I," he said.

"Please, why do I have to leave?" she asked. "I—I think I should have made a good queen, and I do love him."

"That is not the point," the lion said, his voice so deep that she felt it vibrate in her heart. "You were called here for one purpose, and he for another."

"What purpose?" Hermione asked. She was calm now, her breathing steady. There was something in the lion's breath and in his mane (for her fingers were buried in it) that must have held courage, and strength.

"To see this world," he said, "which is ruled by men but which belongs to the talking beasts, the waking trees, the divine waters. For here, all are treated the same, as if they had worth and purpose, as I wish them to be treated. But it is not the same in your world."

"I don't remember," Hermione said honestly. "I'm sorry."

"I know you do not," the lion said. "But you will. And when you return, you will remember this world, or parts of it, and you will know what you are working towards in your own."

"What about Peter?" she whispered. "Will he be happy?"

"Child," he said, "that is someone else's story."

"Oh," Hermione said. "I understand. Will I see him again, at least?"

Aslan nodded his huge head.

"When?"

"Soon," he said. "Soon. Now, Daughter of Eve, do you see those trees?"

"Yes," she said, looking where he indicated: a grove of trees, thickly growing.

"If you pass through it," the lion said, "you will find a lamp-post growing out of the ground. If you continue past that, in a straight line, you will find yourself back home."

She swallowed. "Yes, Aslan," she said, and then they were both silent for a moment. "I suppose," she said finally, "that this is the right thing?"

He leaned down and breathed over her, and Hermione felt herself grow even more relaxed, and even more sure. "Following me, Daughter of Eve, is always right."

Hermione nodded, and then she kissed him and walked, without looking back, toward the grove of trees.

"Hermione!" called a woman's voice, when she was but halfway. "Hermione!"

She turned to see Lucy running towards her, still in her ball gown (luckily, in Narnia formal clothing was comfortable as well as beautiful, for just these occasions). "Lucy," she said, "what are you doing here?"

In response, Lucy handed her a small book and a wooden stick. "Your wand," Lucy said. "And you had the book when you came; we thought it was a spell-book. I cannot read it."

Hermione took the book and opened it; the alphabet was unfamiliar. "I can't either," she admitted, and then she took the wand. "Thank you," she said finally. "And—Alambil, my friend. She doesn't wish to return to Archenland, I don't think, but she is to shy to ask."

"Of course," Lucy said, and then she hugged Hermione tightly, and Hermione wrapped her arms around Lucy. "We will miss you," Lucy whispered. "But I think we will see you again, someday."

"Soon," Hermione said. "Someday soon." And they smiled at each other for a moment, and then Hermione turned and continued into the wood. In a moment she saw a lamp-post growing out of the ground, and before she had gone twelve steps farther she realized the book was Plato, and not a spell-book at all, and that there must have been some magic working that night, for her (and Lucy, too) to walk all the way from Cair Paravel to Lantern Waste in only a quarter of an hour.

When she had gotten only a few feet farther, she saw a small glint of light in front of her, and when she had gone towards it she remembered it was a wardrobe, and that she had come out of it from a place called Hogwarts, in a country called Scotland; and when she had taken two steps more, she found herself tumbling out of the wardrobe, and she was no longer a Duchess but simply Hermione, in her eighth year of schooling at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

OOOOOOO

A/N: Still, I don't own Narnia or the Potterverse. Title still comes from Psalm 84 by way of "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling-Place".

Beta'd by T. Mad Hatter and Ill Ame, who deserve effusive thanks for editing this huge thing all in one go.

Criticism still appreciated!


	5. V Autumn

_Autumn_

She ran as fast as she could from the wardrobe and the room, clutching Plato in one hand and her wand in another. Ron and Harry, she knew, had to be worried sick—not to mention her parents. And the exams she'd missed, being gone a whole year!

She was barely looking where she was going, so she did not see the Divination professor until she ran into her. "Oh—sorry—I'm all right—" she panted, and then she looked up into her face. "Your Majesty?" she whispered, and curtsied awkwardly.

"I think," said the professor after a long, frozen moment, "that Susan will do, under the circumstances."

"But—I have to—I've been gone a whole year—_you _know—"

"No," Susan said quietly. "Narnian time and Earth time do not run the same way here; your adventures have taken no time at all."

"Are Peter and Edmund and Lucy—"

"No," Susan cut her off, and a shadow crossed her face. "They are not here. Come with me, Hermione, I think we could both use a cup of tea."

OOOOOOO

They sat in Susan's apartments and drank mint tea, and Susan tried to explain all she knew of Narnian time and the doors between the worlds, when Hermione saw a picture of Peter on the mantle and felt her eyes tear up. "Will it be like this forever?" she asked.

"No," Susan said gently. "It will begin to fade, in a few days. The memories will not be as vivid, your feelings will be muted. You can even forget entirely, if you want to."

"Why would I want to?" Hermione asked, shocked, and Susan merely shrugged. "What about your brothers and sister?" Hermione pressed on. "Where are they?"

"A moment, please," Susan said, disappearing through the door, and Hermione sipped her tea and studied the picture of Peter. He was younger than her Peter, and yet his eyes were older, all the same.

"Here," Susan said, when she had returned. She was carrying a pile of books; they looked, Hermione noted with some surprise, as if they had never been opened. "Jack knew our story, or most of it; he guessed at the rest. It's—been changed, for the books, but it is still mostly true. And it is better than what I could tell you."

Hermione took the books wordlessly: _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician's Nephew; _and _The Last Battle._ "They're all about you?"

Susan shook her head. "I'm only in three of them; Peter is in four. Lucy gets five. You will not find yourself, I don't think."

"Ah," Hermione said, slowly running her fingers over the covers.

OOOOOOO

She read them that night by the light of her wand, curled in her four-poster with the curtains all shut. The books were what she wanted to hear, and yet they also were not: they did not answer the important questions. Was Peter happy, without her? Did he marry anyone else? What about Alambil—did she live out her days in Narnia, or return to Archenland? And the end—how was it that Peter and Edmund and Lucy could all be killed in a _railway crash_, of all things?

How soon was soon?

She fell asleep that night dreaming of Narnia, of its cool waters and dancing trees, and of Peter, who whispered in her ear and took her by the hand. But she did not see his face, in her dream, and when she woke up, she could not picture it.

Hermione was starting to forget.

_finis_

A/N: I still don't own anything. This entire thing was beta'd by T. Mad Hatter and Ill Ame, who are the most amazing people ever.

This chapter was so incredibly short because really, it's an epilogue. Um. And it really does continue from the last part, which is why they're posted together.

I had loads of fun writing this, and I hope you liked it—criticism always appreciated!


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